Erwin von Witzleben

Erwin von Witzleben (4 December 1881-8 August 1944) was a Field Marshal of the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He became a leading conspirator in the 20 July plot as a German Resistance member, but he was executed in August 1944 after the plot's failure.

Biography
Erwin von Witzleben was born in Breslau, Silesia, German Empire (now Wroclaw, Poland) on 4 December 1881, and he joined the Imperial German Army in 1901, serving in World War I as a battalion commander in France and Flanders. He rose in the ranks of the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic during the Interwar period, becoming a colonel in 1931 and a Major-General in 1934. In 1934, he came out against the Nazi regime when he and Erich von Manstein, Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, and Gerd von Rundstedt demanded an inquiry into Kurt von Schleicher and Ferdinand von Bredow's deaths during the Night of the Long Knives. He would be fired after criticizing Adolf Hitler's unfair persecution of Werner von Fristch in the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, and he took part in conspiracies against Hitler. In September 1939, as a Colonel-General, he took command of the German 1st Army. His army breached the Maginot Line during the Battle of France, and he commanded German forces in the West from 1941 to 1942, only to be removed due to his criticism of Operation Barbarossa. In 1944, he supported the 20 July plot assassination attempt against Hitler, and he was hanged with piano wire at the Plotzensee Prison in Berlin on 8 August 1944.